Yes, employers — mostly large and some smallish — are expected to offer workers this year more tools and services to improve finances, according to Aon Hewitt’s 2016 Hot Topics in Retirement and Financial Well-Being report.

In fact, nearly 89% of employers surveyed by Aon Hewitt are very or moderately likely to add tools, services and communication to expand their financial well-being focus. What to expect?

Back to the basics

Look for your employer to help you in ways that go way beyond retirement planning. Employers plan to help you learn about the basics of financial markets, which for obvious reasons would be a good thing now, budgeting, debt management, financial planning, and health-care planning, according to Aon Hewitt.

To be fair, there’s no standard way for employers to provide this sort of assistance, said Rob Austin, director of Retirement Research at Aon Hewitt. “Some take a high touch approach and have employee meetings and education sessions. Others take a high tech approach and provide workers with apps and websites to provide assistance.”

Health wealth link

Employers are also expected to help you learn more about the link between financial stress and health and well-being, as well help workers prioritize their health and retirement planning decisions.

“Some employers approach the link through the health side by showing the impact of stress on the body and indicating that financial woes are a primary driver of stress,” said Austin.“Other employers come at it by looking at the financial side.”

According to Austin, most of the links right now revolve around two areas: One, making sure that workers who choose a high deductible plan have the savings available in case a medical emergency occurs; and two, helping workers prioritize their savings between the HSA and the 401(k).

Help with Social Security and Medicare

And for workers who are retirement’s doorstep, employers are likely to offer more retirement planning including help with Social Security and Medicare. Why so? “In a nutshell, these are important decisions that are complex,” said Austin. “For many, Social Security is a huge piece of the retirement income.”

Consider: Aon Hewitt’s Financial Mindset study shows that, on average, workers think that Social Security will make up about 30% of their income. “At the same time, there are hundreds of different ways to claim it when you factor in the commencement date and the form of payment,” said Austin.“As employers think about their workforce planning, they realize that some workers need help navigating through Social Security and Medicare estimates to make sure that they have a complete picture of their finances and can make an informed retirement decision.”

Turning nest eggs into lifetime income

Employers are also looking at ways workers can convert the money in their retirement plan into lifetime income. Employers plan to add, according to Aon Hewitt, modeling tools or mobile apps to help workers determine how much they can spend in retirement. And get this, plan participants will soon be able to elect an automatic payment from their 401(k) plan over an extended period, instead of using annuity products.

“Most employers are adding these features to not require participants to take a lump sum from the plan,” said Austin. “Many employers have been touting their 401(k) plans’ benefits including the advantages of the investments in the plan, for example lower fees, institutional investments, fiduciary monitoring, and the like. To force people out at retirement sends a conflicting message.”

Loans be gone

Also look for more stuff in your email inbox about how bad 401(k) loans can be. “We continue to hear from many employers about trying to stop habitual loan takers from the plans, but now we’re seeing interest from employers in methods like adding a waiting period between the paying off one loan and initiating another,” said Austin.

Fee falling

And though it might not affect workers directly just yet, employers do plan to perform a comprehensive review of fund offerings, as well as review the plan’s total plan costs, including fund expenses, recordkeeping fees, trustee fees, and revenue sharing arrangements, according to the Aon Hewitt report.

“I think most changes to investments will be evolutionary, rather than revolutionary,” said Austin. “It will be much more likely to see a plan swap, say, their mid-cap U.S. equity fund for a better performing or lower-cost one than to make sweeping changes to the plan. Nonetheless, we expect a handful of employers to make bolder moves on their investments by streamlining their menu and overhauling their fund lineup with objective-based, white-labeled funds.”

Meanwhile, Lori Lucas, an executive vice president and defined contribution practice leader at Callan Associates, said plan participants can expect the following changes in 2016 based on Callan’s 2016 Defined Contribution Trends report:

“Participants may see reductions in the plan fees they pay, as nearly a third of plan sponsors say they are very likely to conduct a fee study this year, and another 20% say they are somewhat likely to do so,” said Lucas. “In past years, about one third of plan sponsors reported that they reduced plan fees as a result of their fee calculations or fee benchmarking.”

Auto-enrollment default contribution rates on the rise

Auto-enrolled participants may see higher default contribution rates this year, the median default contribution rate is expected to increase from 3% to 4% in 2016, said Lucas. “Notably, a robust level of contributions or savings, along with plan participation, is the most commonly cited means by which plan sponsors rate the success of their defined-contribution plan,” she said.

Like Aon Hewitt, Callan also said plan participants may see increased communication around the need to contribute more to their defined-contribution plan. “Plan sponsors most commonly cited this as an area of communication focus in 2016,” said Lucas.

Aon Hewitt also noted that a similar trend. Employers are going to encourage you to contribute more to your 401(k) plan and help you understand how financially ready you are for retirement.

No changes to company stock

Most plan participants are unlikely to experience any change when it comes to their company stock fund this year, said Lucas. In fact, 58.6% of plan sponsors cited no changes anticipated. “However, participants in plans with company stock may see more communication about the importance of diversification: 13.8% of plan sponsors noted this was an anticipated change in 2016,” she said.

Roth 401(k)s coming

If your employer doesn’t presently offer Roth designated accounts, there’s a reasonable chance one will be may be added, said Lucas. Currently, 62% of plans currently offer Roth and 14.3% of plan sponsors made add it in 2016.

New target-date funds coming to a plan near you

About a third of plan sponsors anticipate anticipating evaluating the suitability of the plan’s target-date funds, according to Callan’s report. And that means, according to Lucas, that plan participants may see changes to the funds being offered. “The likeliest change: moving away from the target-date fund of the plan’s recordkeeper,” she said.

Fewer funds

More than one in 10 plan sponsors anticipate reducing the number of funds offered in their defined-contribution plan in 2016. The upshot: “Participants may anticipate a more streamlined fund lineup, especially if their plan has a very large menu of investment options,” said Lucas.

Of note, new research supports streamlining defined contribution menus.Such changes reduce fund turnover rates and expense ratios, and could lead to aggregate savings of $9,400 per participant, according to the paper, Simplifying Choices in Defined Contribution Retirement Plan Design, by Donald Keim and Olivia S. Mitchell, both of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Read the paper.

Changes to money market mutual funds

According to Lucas, it’s largely unclear what direction plan sponsors will take with money-market funds in 2016, as nearly 60% say they are unsure or still evaluating what actions to take in light of the implementation of the SEC’s money market reform later this year. “Plan sponsors are weighing everything from moving to lower-yielding government money-market funds with stable NAVs to allowing floating NAVs and liquidity gates to apply to the plan’s money-market fund,” she said.

No changes to investment advisory services

Lucas also said participants’ access to investment advisory services is likely to remain the same in 2016, with no plan sponsors reporting that they are very likely to eliminate such services, and few (2.6%) saying they are very likely to add them. “However, the passage of the Department of Labor’s Definition of a Fiduciary regulation may be a wild card here,” she said.

According to reports published in late January, the Labor Department is close to sending the final version of a proposed fiduciary rule for financial professionals to the White House Office of Management and Budget. The final draft is expected to be completed at the end of this month or in early February, according to InvestmentNews.

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